21 December 2009

This Decade in Spam: 2000

Today, we open our look back at the past decade in spam with the year 2000.

Y2K is possibly best described as the year the Mail Abuse Protection System got sued. A lot. MAPS, as many will remember, was the preeminent anti-spam blacklist at the time, in use by many major receiving sites, and they took some controversial steps to block some major email senders of the day, who in turn, launched lawsuits to prevent that from happening.

As well, some state and federal laws came up for consideration or were struck down in the United States, Hotmail deployed a 'This is Spam' button, and Ferris Research made a fearless prediction.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sends letters to 1,000 spammers, warning their chain letter spam scheme was illegal and instructing them to stop promoting their chain letters, to return any money they had received by participating in the program, and to forward a copy of the FTC's warning letter to everyone they had spammed.